How spin the bottle sealed macho Putin's first kiss

He may not seem particularly frivolous nowadays, but as a teenager Vladimir Putin stole his first kiss during a New Year's Eve game of spin the bottle, the blushing recipient revealed yesterday.

Vera Brileva, now a married pensioner, said she dated the future Kremlin chief when he was 16, and in an interview with the Sobesednik newspaper gave an insight into his suburban youth in Tosno on the outskirts of St Petersburg.

Asked if she remembers their first kiss, she said: "That I will never forget." She and Mr Putin, whom she refers to as Vova or Volodya, diminutives of Vladimir, spent New Year's Eve at the Putin house. "Suddenly someone said: 'Let's play spin the bottle.' When Volodya span the bottle, it stopped on me. Our kiss was short, true. I suddenly became very hot."

She portrayed the future president as a muscular, macho model student, afraid of no one. He drank dry wine and champagne with his tearaway friends but preferred milk. And he appeared to have a magnetic effect on women. When he arrived in Tosno "girls just threw themselves at him", she said. "To this day, I remember his hands. He had short, strong fingers." She admitted she at times dreams that he attended her wedding.

She recalls waiting with him for a train late one night. "Another girl would have been terrified. But not me. Vova feared no one, and with him I was not scared."

Their relationship ended one evening when Vova cut her short when she was reminiscing. "He turned to me strictly and said 'I remember what I need to [remember]'." She did not like his manner and they split up.

Recently a friend asked her to get in touch with her ex-boyfriend to press him to reform the army's conscription policies. She rang up during one of Mr Putin televised question and answer sessions, but was disappointed. She said: "The answer phone asked me to give my name, address, phone number and question, all in one minute. I was so stressed, I didn't manage!"